as respects the size, and the number of species, in the temperate portions of the northern hemisphere. The tropical species of this group are the smallest of its representatives. Those of the temperate and cold temperate regions are the largest, where, too, the species are the most numerous. . . . The possession of large, branching, deciduous antlers forms one of the marked features of the family. These appendages attain their greatest development in the northern species, the tropical forms having been reduced almost to mere spikes, which in some species never pass beyond a rudimentary state.

A paper published in 1871 "On the Mammals and Winter Birds of East Florida, with an Examination of certain assumed Specific Characters in Birds" brought forth the following comment from Coues:

The article gained the Humboldt Scholarship, and is one of the most important of American ornithological works.

His work in taxonomy covered almost the entire mammal fauna of the world, from marsupials to monkeys, from shrews to whales, while his field of research has been at times in every one of the continental areas. The greater number of his papers are systematic taxonomic reports and the descriptions of new forms. He is the author of nearly seven hundred new mammal names, and fifty-three bird names.

Some of the most important of the accomplishments of Dr. Allen have been his labors in the field of scientific nomenclature, a field where authoritative workers are scarce because of the exacting demands of the problems. His knowledge of scientific literature was so deep, his memory for authors and dates so unusual, that he took particular delight in the solution of the weightest nomenclatural problems. His opinions command respect from scientists the world over and this fact has long been recognized in the positions held by the doctor on committees on nɔmenclature of both national and international organizations. It is in this field that the loss of his contributions will be most keenly felt.

He was a member of the Commission on Nomenclature of the International Congress

of Zoology since 1910 and attended the meeting in Monaco in 1913.

A man of extreme modesty and retiring temperament, indeed bashful, he strove for no titles, sought for no publicity. Honors, however, came to him unasked. In 1886 he was granted the degree of Ph.D. by Indiana University; in 1903, he was awarded the Walker Grand Prize, Boston Society of Natural History, and in 1916 the Medal of the Linnæan Society of New York. He was a fellow or member of no less than thirty-three scientific societies in the United States and abroad.

He held high positions in many scientific organizations, the more important being that of president of the American Ornithologists Union, 1883-1891; an incorporator of the (first) Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds, 1886; a Founder and Director of the Audubon Society of the State of New York, 1897-1912; Vice-president of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1891-1894; President of the Linnæan Society of New York, 1890-1897; etc.

Dr. Allen possessed to a rare degree the faculty of concentration and devotion to his work. Not content with the amount of work done at his office in the museum, he carried books and material home with him, and his ideal vacation was one where he might take some special subject away with him where he could study unmolested. In brief, he lived for his work and to the psychology of this devotion may possibly, in part, be attributed his ripe age, attained in spite of long periods of ill health.

No one associated with Dr. Allen could fail to be impressed, not only with the very evident scholarly attainments of the man, but with his sincerity and simplicity. From a profound respect for his work, one passed readily to a love for the man, and an association with him in any work could be counted, not only as a most valuable mental training, to be prized in later years, but as a friendly contact no less to be remembered.

Dr. Allen married, in 1874, Mary Manning Cleveland and a son, Cleveland Allen was born to them. His wife died in 1879 and for seven years the doctor remained single. In 1886 he

married Susan Augusta Taft, who with his son Cleveland survives him. Dr. Allen's home life was idyllic and to this inspiration he was wont to attribute the achievements of his later life and the activity of his older years.

With the passing of Dr. Joel Asaph Allen the world has lost an earnest and sincere student, natural science has lost the power of an able pen backed by the searching analysis of level judgment, while his personal friends will mourn the loss of all this and more, for they have known him as a man.

H. E. ANTHONY AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

THE DANISH DEEP-SEA EXPEDITION WE find in Nature an account of the Danish Deep-Sea Expedition, which left Copenhagen on August 30 on board the new research steamer Dana. It plans to spend about ten months in the temperate and tropical parts of the North Atlantic. The object of the expedition is to carry out deep-sea investigations in accordance with a scheme which was submitted by the leader of the expedition, Dr. Johs. Schmidt, to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea during their meeting at Copenhagen in July last.

The Dana, of the Lord Mersey trawler type, was bought in England by the Danish Government to replace the old research steamer Thor, which was sold some years ago. The Dana has been equipped for marine research work at the Royal Dockyard, Copenhagen. She has a length of about 140 ft. between perpendiculars, and is 325 tons gross register. She carries a 600-h.p. triple expansion engine, giving her a speed of 9 knots. A large deckhouse has been constructed, which contains two laboratories—a larger biological laboratory with accommodation for five workers, and a smaller one for hydrographical work with room for two-together with a room for the scientific staff, and a cabin for the leader of the expedition. Below deck are the cabins of the scientific staff, and storerooms for the various instruments, fishing gears, collections, etc. The winches are

mess

worked by steam. A big trawl-winch placed forward has two drums, the smaller carrying 4000 meters of steel wire 14 mm. in diameter for trawling at moderate depths, and the larger, carrying 10,000 meters of steel wire tapering from 14 mm. to 7 mm. in diameter, to be used for greater depths. The three winches for vertical hauls (water-bottles, plankton nets, and sounding) are placed on the port side of the ship; one works the Lucas sounding machine and a drum carrying 6,000 meters of phosophor-bronze wire; another is a small hand-winch to be used for the surface layers; and the third works a big drum carrying 10,000 meters of steel wire 4 mm. in diameter. The steel-wire ropes have been supplied by Messrs. Craven and Speeding Bros., Sunderland, and the hydrographical instruments by the Laboratoire Hydrographique, Copenhagen, of which Professor Martin Knudsen is director.

The personnel of the expedition is as follows:-Dr. Johs. Schmidt, leader of the expedition; Dr. J. N. Nielsen (Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen), hydrographer; P. Jespersen and A. V. Taaning (Danish Committee for the Study of the Sea); K. Stephensen (Zoological Museum, Copenhagen); J. Olsen (Polytechnic College, Copenhagen), assistant hydrographer. N. C. Anderson, ship's doctor, will also take part in the investigations. Professor C. H. Ostenfeld expects to join the expedition later on during its stay in West Indian waters.

THE FIFTH AVENUE HOSPITAL OF
NEW YORK

THE Fifth Avenue Hospital Association is making an urgent plea for contributions to complete the construction of the new building at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue. The institution will combine the present Hahnemann Hospital and the Laura Franklin Free Hospital for Children. Dr. Wiley E. Woodbury, director of the hospital, has made a statement for the New York Evening Post in which he

says:

There is an enormous waste in the administration of the free ward, which is not realized by any

except those who have had direct experience with it. This waste will be eliminated to a large extent by housing patients in separate single rooms. And the keynote of the whole thing will be the flexibility of the service.

In the first place, it is the business of a hospital to cure people. No one will say that noise, confusion and unsightliness are conducive to cure. A separate room for each patient together with other provisions for privacy and comfort in this new hospital will eliminate noise, confusion, and unsightliness and with them, fear. What that will save in energy and worry to doctor and nurse and patient is incalculable.

Next, the single-room system will save the nurse's time. In the ordinary ward all the supplies are kept at the end of the ward, and the nurse has to travel its entire length to get what she requires every time she goes to any one of the We shall have each patient's equipment at the patient's bedside and save the nurse's time and strength.

beds.

Every bed will be working 100 per cent. We shall not be troubled by the necessity for sex segregation or disease classification.

With the ward system there is often a waiting list for the women's surgical ward, while several beds are empty in the men's ward. This means that two things happen: People who urgently need surgical treatment are denied it and empty beds add their quota to the overhead without working for it.

Again, in the classification of diseases, the maternity ward of the old type hospital may be half empty and the surgical and medical wards full. Yet it is impossible to put surgical and medical cases into a maternity ward, for fear of infection. That means more beds wasted, also heat and light and service. It is equally wrong to put children with adults. But in a wardless hospital in case of an epidemic among children the children can easily be put into adults' rooms.

Pneumonia and typhoid patients should never be put in open wards at all, because it is impossible to control the source of infection. These cases need varying temperatures; some, moreover, are of a virulent form and some are not; and some may be fairly safe at the start and develop into virulent cases later and infect others.

I have often seen a fifteen-bed ward occupied by only two patients. Of course, in cases like this it would be cheaper to put the patients into single rooms and close the wards; but frequently there is

no single room vacant, and all the heat and service and light and equipment needed for fifteen people have to be expended upon two.

On the other hand, when a single room is unoccupied the lights are put out, the heat is turned off, the door is locked-and that room costs nothing for upkeep until it is occupied again.

Occupants of wards are invariably distressed by the rigid rules concerning visiting hours. These rules are necessary. People who are critically ill and those who are convalescent are all together in the same ward. Their requirements, of course, are different-those who are recovering need to be amused, to see their friends; and this is sure to disturb the critically ill even during a very limited visiting period. When all are in separate rooms, visiting hours will be limited only by the physician in charge.

The advantages in respect to ventilation and other conditions which should vary with varying types of illness are obvious. A pneumonia patient and one recovering from an operation need totally different conditions, and only by separating them can the greatest comfort be secured for each.

THE EMPLOYMENT OF MENTAL DEFECTIVES IN ENGLAND

ACCORDING to the British Medical Journal, the special schools after-care committee of the City of Birmingham Education Committee has the duty of keeping a record of the subsequent history of former pupils in the special schools for the mentally defective. The total number of cases included in its records has increased from 2,282 in the year 1919 to 2,504 during the past year, males numbering 1,503 and females 1,001. These figures indicate very clearly the ratio of three boys to two girls, which is frequently found in the various special schools for the mentally defective. Of the 2,504 cases in last year's records, 969 are doing remunerative work, 913 of these earning wages which average 30s. 10d. per week, while 56 are soldiers. The general depression in industrial and trade conditions has naturally had an effect upon the mentally defective cases in employment, and, while the number of men and youths under review this year has increased from 1,380 to 1,503, the number in employment has only risen from 630 to 655; the number of women and

girls in employment has actually decreased from 320 to 314, although the total number of cases reported on has grown from 902 to 1,001. During the war, and for some time afterwards, no difficulty was experienced in procuring situations for such mentally defective persons as were capable of employment, but under the present conditions of industry considerable difficulty arises. The earnings of those, however, who have remained in employment show the general upward tendency which wages had during 1920, and three men are each reported as able to earn £5 per week, while two others in business on their own account are reported to be making comfortable livings. The percentage of cases in institutions again decreased last year, and the committee says it finds that institutional accommodation for the mentally defective continues to be deplorably inadequate throughout the country as a whole.

BUREAU OF SPECIAL EDUCATION IN OHIO

THE eighty-third General Assembly of Ohio appropriated $10,000 "for the training of teachers for subnormal and delinquent children." One sentence in an appropriation bill provided that this sum should be transferred to one of the state colleges of education "to be designated by a committee composed of the director of juvenile research, the president of Ohio University, the president of Miami University, the superintendent of Bowling Green State Normal School, and the superintendent of Kent State Normal School for such purposes." On December 30, 1920, the committee decided to place the work under the administration of Miami University. Practically all the initial appropriation was used for the purchase of psychological, anthropometric and medical apparatus, intelligence and educational test blanks, office and classroom furniture and equipment, material for special class work, a piano, a victrola, a portable projector, a Burroughs adding machine, etc., and the payment of salaries up to the end of the fiscal year, July 1, 1921.

Instruction was first offered in the summer

session under the temporary direction of Dr. J. E. Wallace Wallin, who has been director of the psycho-educational clinic and special schools in St. Louis during the past seven years, and who during the preceding four years was director of laboratories of clinical psychology and anthropometry in the State Village for Epileptics in New Jersey and the University of Pittsburgh, and who has offered courses for the training of teachers and examiners of abnormal children during the last eleven years in the Vineland Training School, the Universities of Pittsburgh, Iowa, California and Montana, and the Harris Teachers College of St. Louis.

Dr. Wallin has been retained as permanent director of the department, which is known as Bureau of Special Education. The present staff includes, in addition to the directors, one assistant to the director, one stenographer on part time, and two critic teachers, a part of whose salaries is paid by the local school districts in which are the observation and practise centers. The main practise center during the present year is in Hamilton. It is hoped to locate the bureau eventually in a large city, which will afford, in connection with the public-school system, ample opportunities for observation and practise teaching in many kinds of special classes and which will also afford superior clinical advantages.

A FOREST EXPERIMENTAL STATION AT ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

THE continued steady depletion of the timber supply in the Appalachian region has led the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture to establish a new forest experiment station at Asheville, North Carolina. This is the first organization of its kind to be established in the eastern United States.

The staff will be engaged mainly in silvicul tural research to secure information greatly needed for the proper management of forest lands in order to insure a continuous supply of timber and other forest products. E. H. Frothingham has been appointed director. He comes to the station with a background of over twelve years of investigative work with the Forest Service throughout the east

ern United States. The other members of the staff are E. F. McCarthy, for nine years a member of the teaching staff of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University and recently research specialist with the Canadian Conservation Commission; C. F. Korstian, at one time a member of the staff of the Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station and recently in charge of research in the Intermountain District of the U. S. Forest Service, Ogden, Utah; and F. W. Haasis, until recently a member of the investigative staff of the Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station near Flagstaff, Arizona.

THE INSTALLATION OF PRESIDENT FARRAND AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

DR. LIVINGSTON FARRAND was inaugurated president of Cornell University on October 20. Chief Justice Frank H. Hiscock of the New York State Court of Appeals made an introductory address as chairman of the board of trustees of the university. Acting President Albert W. Smith, formerly dean of Sibley College of Engineering, delivered the seal and charter of the university to President Farrand.

President Farrand then gave his inaugural address, which was on the world situation following the war and the service that the universities should offer.

Following President Farrand's address Dean William A. Hammond spoke for the faculties of the university and Mr. Foster L. Coffin for the alumni.

President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, President M. L. Burton of Michigan, and President R. L. Wilbur of Leland Stanford, Jr., brought the greetings from the universities of the East, Middle West, and West respectively. President Harry W. Chase of the University of North Carolina, who was unable to be present, telegraphed the greetings of the Southern colleges.

Finally Governor Miller presented greetings from the State of New York.

At the dinner in the evening in addition to President Farrand the speakers included President James R. Angell of Yale University, Sir Robert Falconer, president of the University of Toronto, and Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey.

Coincident with the inauguration of Dr. Farrand came the disclosure that the anonymous benefactor who gave $1,500,000 to Cornell for a new chemical laboratory is Mr. George F. Baker, chairman of the board of directors of the First National Bank of New York. Mr. Baker attended the exercises and laid the corner stone of the laboratory.

Professor E. L. Nichols made an introductory address, which was followed by the main address of the day by Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith, provost emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania and president of the American Chemical Society. Mr. Charles M. Schwab, a trustee of Cornell University, spoke for Mr. Baker.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS DR. GEORGE S. CRAMPTON was elected president of the Society of Illuminating Engineers at the recent Rochester meeting.

PROFESSOR HENRY S. JACOBY, for thirty-one years a member of the college of civil engineering of Cornell University and for twenty-one years head of the bridge engineering department, will retire from active service at the close of the college year.

ROBERT STANISLAUS GRIFFIN, for more than eight years head of the Bureau of Engineering of the Navy Department and engineer in chief of the U. S. Navy, has retired from active service.

THE Morris Liebman Prize, the cash award made each year by the Institute of Radio Engineers to that member of the institute who is considered to have made the most important contribution to radio art during the preceding twelve months, has been awarded to R. H. Heising, of the engineering laboratory of the Western Electric Company, "for his analysis of vacuum tube action and his research work on modulation systems."

THE first award of the Marcel Benoist Prize of 20,000 francs has been made to M. Maurice Arthus, director of the Institute of Physiology at Geneva. The prize was founded by M. Benoist of Paris, who bequeathed his whole fortune to the Federal Council of Switzerland in recognition of the care and attention which he